CAREANDSELFLOVE

At 10:47 p.m., a woman checks that the front door is locked, gets into bed, puts on her headphones—and asks a podcast host to tell her about a murder.

On paper, this makes no sense.

Why invite a story about danger into the one part of the day designed for rest? Why listen to an account of stalking, deception or violence while folding laundry, walking the dog or preparing to sleep? Why can a familiar true crime narrator feel almost like company when the subject itself is anything but comforting?

I think the contradiction becomes easier to understand once we stop assuming that comfort must come from pleasant content.

Sometimes comfort comes from structure.

Sometimes it comes from hearing a frightening event placed inside a sequence: this happened, then this, because of that, and eventually someone found the missing piece. Sometimes it comes from listening to an unknowable threat become a knowable story. And sometimes it comes from the simple fact that the listener controls the door: she can enter the story, pause it, lower the volume or leave.

That is the central idea I keep returning to:

The comfort is usually not in the crime. It is in the container built around the crime.

The episode has a beginning and an ending. The danger has a name. The clues can be examined. The narrator’s voice is familiar. The listener is physically safe—or at least safer than the person inside the story—and she retains control over the experience.

None of this means women enjoy real suffering. It does not mean every female listener is anxious, traumatized or secretly preparing for disaster. It certainly does not mean that women share a single psychological profile.

What it may mean is that true crime offers a peculiar combination of controlled fear, curiosity, rehearsal, companionship and moral resolution. For some listeners, that combination transforms diffuse unease into focused attention. Fear stops floating freely and is given edges.

And a fear with edges can feel easier to hold.

Why do Women find true crime comforting?

Many women find true crime comforting because the genre allows them to encounter danger from a position of relative control. A chaotic event is turned into a structured narrative with causes, clues, expert voices and, often, some form of resolution.

True crime may also satisfy morbid curiosity, create a feeling of preparedness, offer moral clarity and provide companionship through familiar hosts. In some cases, focused suspense temporarily interrupts broader, less defined worries.

The pattern often looks like this:

Diffuse unease → a named threat → a sequence of events → possible explanations → an outcome → a return to ordinary life

That sequence does not make the crime comforting. It makes the experience of thinking about crime more manageable.

Survey data confirms that the gender difference is real, even if its causes are complex. Among Americans who had listened to a podcast in the previous year, 44% of women said they regularly listened to true crime, compared with 23% of men. True crime was also the most common topic among top-ranked podcasts examined by Pew Research Center in 2022.

But those numbers do not tell us why women listen. To understand that, I believe we have to look beneath the label “true crime fan” and examine the different emotional jobs the genre can perform.

First, “comforting” does not mean comfortable

I use the word comforting carefully.

True crime can be disturbing, exploitative and emotionally exhausting. It can worsen mistrust, disrupt sleep and amplify fear. It can also turn real victims into characters and perpetrators into dark celebrities. Calling the genre “comforting” should never erase those realities.

Yet comfort is not always softness.

A thunderstorm can feel comforting when we hear it from inside a warm room. A sad song can soothe us without making us happy. A horror film can be exhilarating because the fear is intense but bounded. A difficult conversation can bring relief because uncertainty finally becomes explicit.

True crime can operate in a similar way. The emotional material is dark, but the listener’s relationship with that material is mediated by distance, narration and control.

In other words, the mind may not be saying, “This violence is comforting.”

It may be saying:

• “I know what I am paying attention to.”
• “I can stop whenever I want.”
• “Someone is guiding me through this.”
• “There may be an explanation.”
• “For the next forty minutes, my attention has somewhere specific to go.”

That distinction matters throughout this article.

The seven hidden forms of comfort

The word comfort can conceal several different experiences. A listener may be seeking suspense on Monday, companionship on Wednesday and a sense of preparedness on Friday.

Table 1. What “comfort” may actually mean

No single explanation applies to every listener. I would be suspicious of any theory that claims to explain millions of women with one motive.

The better question is not simply, “Why do women like true crime?”

It is:

What does this particular story help this particular listener feel, understand or temporarily escape?

1. Controlled fear can feel safer than shapeless fear

One of the most useful concepts here is controlled fear.

A true crime episode presents a threat, but it also places boundaries around it. The listener chooses the program, the time, the volume and the environment. She knows that the danger belongs to a recorded story. Even when the body responds with tension or suspense, another part of the mind understands that the experience can be stopped.

This creates an unusual emotional arrangement:

High-intensity subject + low immediate physical risk + strong listener control

Research into horror and frightening entertainment suggests that people can enjoy moving through uncertainty when the experience is framed, predictable enough to tolerate and safely reversible. Frightening stories may function as controlled encounters with uncertainty rather than simple exercises in suffering.

I think this helps explain why true crime may feel more calming than a vague sense of dread. General anxiety often lacks a single object. It moves from work to health, money, relationships, safety and the future without reaching a conclusion.

A true crime story says: Here is the threat. Here is the timeline. Here are the people involved.

The subject is terrible, but it is specific.

And specificity can temporarily reduce the exhausting work of wondering what to worry about.

That does not make true crime a treatment for anxiety. I would never present it as one. It simply means that some listeners may experience a short-term shift from diffuse worry to concentrated attention.

The controlled-fear equation

Uncertainty + distance + choice + narrative structure = tolerable suspense

Remove distance, and the story may feel too personal.

Remove choice, and it may feel intrusive.

Remove structure, and it may feel chaotic.

The balance is delicate—and it differs from person to person.

2. True crime gives chaos a sequence

Real violence is often incomprehensible. It interrupts ordinary life without offering the clean logic that storytelling prefers.

True crime media changes that experience by arranging information. It creates a timeline, introduces relevant people, selects details and moves the audience from question to possible answer.

The listener is no longer confronting chaos in its raw form. She is confronting an edited version of chaos.

I call this narrative containment: the process of placing disturbing information inside a structure that the mind can follow.

Chaos → chronology → pattern → interpretation → possible closure

That structure can be deeply satisfying. Human attention is drawn to incomplete patterns and unanswered questions. A story creates tension by opening a gap in knowledge; it creates relief by narrowing or closing that gap.

Research on morbid curiosity suggests that people actively seek information about danger, death and disturbing events partly because such information can reduce uncertainty and improve understanding of threatening situations. Neurocognitive research also indicates that choosing to view negative social information can engage reward-related processes, demonstrating that disturbing information may be motivationally valuable rather than merely unpleasant.

This is why the phrase “I couldn’t stop listening” does not necessarily mean the listener enjoyed the violence. She may have been caught inside an unfinished cognitive loop.

Who did it?

What was missed?

Why did nobody intervene?

Will the family receive an answer?

Will the person responsible be held accountable?

The promise of an answer pulls attention forward.

Of course, this is also where editing can become ethically dangerous. Real cases rarely have perfect endings. Motives may remain unclear. Convictions can be overturned. Families may reject the media’s interpretation. A polished narrative can create an illusion of certainty that the evidence does not deserve.

Narrative containment comforts—but it can also deceive.

3. Listening can feel like learning the language of danger

Many women move through the world with some degree of safety awareness: checking who is behind them, sharing their location, planning transport, watching drinks or calculating whether politeness is becoming risky.

These habits do not appear from nowhere. They develop through personal experience, family advice, social warnings, news reports and the knowledge that certain forms of violence disproportionately affect women.

True crime can enter this environment as an informal—and highly imperfect—manual.

Listeners may collect warning signs:

• sudden isolation from friends,
• coercive control disguised as concern,
• escalating jealousy,
• stalking and unwanted monitoring,
• financial restriction,
• threats following separation,
• inconsistencies in someone’s account,
• failures by institutions to take reports seriously.

Research has explored true crime consumption as a possible form of defensive vigilance, particularly where women use information about violence to identify danger or think through avoidance strategies.

I understand why that can feel empowering. Naming a pattern can reduce helplessness. Learning that coercive control is a recognizable process, rather than an isolated collection of “relationship problems,” may help a listener interpret behavior more clearly.

But I also want to place a firm boundary around this explanation:

Learning about danger is not the same as gaining control over every dangerous situation.

No amount of vigilance can guarantee safety. A victim is never responsible for failing to predict another person’s violence. If true crime suggests that survival belongs to the smartest or most observant woman, it has moved from education into victim-blaming.

The useful lesson is not, “She should have known.”

It is, “What social, interpersonal or institutional pattern can we understand more clearly?”

That shift protects the dignity of victims while still allowing listeners to learn.

4. Morbid curiosity is not the absence of empathy

The phrase morbid curiosity sounds vaguely shameful, as if the curious person must be cold, intrusive or secretly thrilled by suffering.

Psychologically, the concept is more neutral.

Morbid curiosity describes a desire to obtain information about dangerous, threatening or disturbing phenomena. That desire may help people understand what to avoid, how extreme behavior develops or what kinds of situations produce harm.

Researchers studying curiosity about negative information distinguish several possible motives: wanting to know, wanting to feel and wanting to share or discuss the experience with others.

I find that distinction especially useful.

A woman may listen because she wants to know how an investigation worked.

She may listen because suspense creates an intense emotional experience.

She may listen because her sister, friend or online community is discussing the case.

She may be motivated by all three at once.

Curiosity and compassion are not opposites. A person may want details precisely because she cares about what happened. She may be angry about institutional failures or moved by the family’s search for justice.

The ethical question is not whether curiosity exists. It always will.

The ethical question is what that curiosity asks for.

Does it ask for context, evidence and accountability?

Or does it demand graphic details, leaked images and intimate material that the public does not need?

Morbid curiosity can open the door to understanding. It should not be treated as permission to walk through every room.

5. The genre offers moral clarity in a morally blurry world

Daily life rarely gives us satisfying moral conclusions.

People harm others without acknowledging it. Institutions fail quietly. Manipulation is subtle. Injustice can remain unnamed, and accountability may never arrive.

True crime frequently offers a sharper moral structure. There is harm. There is evidence. There are decisions to examine. Someone asks who was responsible and whether the system responded appropriately.

For listeners who have experienced dismissal, gaslighting or uncertainty, hearing harmful behavior named plainly may feel validating.

• “This was coercion.”
• “This was stalking.”
• “This was not a misunderstanding.”
• “The warning signs were reported.”
• “The institution failed.”

I think this form of comfort is less about punishment than recognition. The listener witnesses a confusing or hidden pattern being made visible.

Recent research with female true crime audiences suggests that women’s engagement with the genre is shaped not only by entertainment, but also by feminist discourse, ethical judgment and concern about how victims are represented.

The best true crime reporting can expand moral attention. It can reveal systemic failures, explore the treatment of victims and challenge the assumption that violence happens only through obvious monsters.

The worst versions do the opposite. They compress complex people into villains and saints, imply that conviction always equals truth and turn punishment into entertainment.

Moral clarity feels good. Moral simplification is something else.

6. A familiar voice can turn a dark story into a social ritual

True crime podcasts are not only collections of cases. They are relationships built through sound.

A host’s voice arrives during repetitive, private moments: washing dishes, commuting, walking, cleaning, exercising or lying in bed. Over time, the rhythm becomes familiar. The listener knows the introduction, the conversational style, the small jokes and the way the host signals concern or disbelief.

Audio creates intimacy without requiring visual attention. A voice can feel physically close while leaving room for the listener to move through her own environment.

This helps explain why a podcast about murder may feel more comforting than a graphic documentary about the same case. The content may be dark, but the format is familiar, portable and partly invisible.

Research into true crime podcast communities has examined how intimacy, interactivity and feminist language shape the connection between hosts and listeners. Earlier work on true crime podcast audiences also found that entertainment, convenience, social interaction and information-seeking contribute to listening motivations.

I think we sometimes underestimate the emotional importance of routine.

The nervous system does not respond only to subject matter. It also responds to predictability.

Familiar theme music → recognizable voice → expected format → repeated ritual

The episode becomes part of the listener’s day. The host may feel like company during a lonely commute or a quiet evening.

That relationship is parasocial—the listener knows the host, while the host does not personally know the listener—but parasocial does not mean imaginary or meaningless. The feelings can be real even when the relationship is one-sided.

Problems arise when familiarity becomes uncritical loyalty: when listeners defend unethical reporting, harass people involved in cases or treat speculation from a favorite host as established fact.

A trustworthy voice should not replace independent judgment.

7. Focused suspense can interrupt mental overload

There is another explanation I rarely see discussed carefully enough: true crime can give an overloaded mind one job.

Modern attention is fragmented. Messages, responsibilities, news alerts, unfinished work and internal worries compete for mental space. True crime creates a single, highly salient question and holds attention there.

For the duration of the episode, the mind follows one trail.

Scattered attention → one urgent question → sustained focus → temporary cognitive quiet

This may be particularly noticeable during repetitive activities. The hands are occupied, the story is progressing and unrelated thoughts have less room to intrude.

I am not suggesting that disturbing stories regulate everyone’s emotions or that true crime should be used as a mental health technique. The evidence does not justify that conclusion.

But I do think focused attention explains part of the appeal. A compelling mystery can temporarily reduce the feeling of being mentally pulled in ten directions.

The effect resembles the absorption people experience with puzzles, thrillers, games or dramatic television. The difference is that true crime carries the additional weight of reality.

That weight may make the story more absorbing—but it also creates ethical obligations that fiction does not.

The “comfort architecture” of true crime

When these mechanisms overlap, they create what I think of as the genre’s comfort architecture.

The architecture is not the crime itself. It is everything surrounding the crime:

• the safe listening environment,
• control over playback,
• the narrator’s familiar voice,
• a defined timeline,
• unanswered questions,
• the expectation of explanation,
• a community of other listeners,
• moral language,
• and the ability to return to ordinary life.

The basic comfort loop

Unease → curiosity → focused attention → pattern recognition → temporary resolution → familiar routine

This loop can feel stabilizing when it ends in calm.

It becomes less helpful when it ends in checking, replaying or escalating fear.

Table 2. Is true crime comforting You—or activating You?

I would judge the habit by its after-effects, not by the genre’s reputation.

If an episode ends and the listener feels calm, connected or thoughtfully informed, it may be functioning as a bounded ritual.

If it produces persistent fear, repeated lock-checking, avoidance, intrusive images or worsening sleep, the label “comfort show” no longer tells the whole truth.

Why Women in particular?

This question deserves a careful answer because it is easy to slip into biological stereotypes.

There is no universal “female brain” programmed to enjoy crime stories. Women are not naturally more anxious, more empathetic or more interested in victims in some simple, fixed way.

The difference is better understood as an interaction between experience, socialization, risk and media culture.

Many girls receive safety instructions early:

“Do not walk alone.”

“Text when you get there.”

“Watch your drink.”

“Do not be too trusting.”

“Do not be rude—but do not be too friendly.”

These messages teach vigilance while often leaving women responsible for managing other people’s potential violence.

True crime does not create that social reality. It enters a world in which many women are already expected to think about risk.

The genre may then offer:

• language for patterns they have been taught to monitor,
• stories about what happens when warnings are dismissed,
• examples of institutional failure,
• discussion of coercive control and stalking,
• a community in which fear is spoken aloud,
• and imagined opportunities to solve what others missed.

That does not mean all female listening is fear-based. Pew’s survey found that entertainment and having something to listen to while doing other tasks were among the most common reasons people listened to true crime podcasts.

Sometimes a woman listens because she likes mysteries.

Sometimes she enjoys the host.

Sometimes she wants company while cleaning the kitchen.

Sometimes the most accurate psychological explanation is also the least dramatic: the show is interesting.

Does true crime really make Women feel safer?

It can create a subjective sense of preparedness, but that should not be confused with measurable protection.

A listener may learn useful concepts, recognize manipulative behavior or become more aware of resources available to victims. That knowledge can matter.

However, repeated exposure to extraordinary cases can also distort risk perception. The mind estimates probability partly through availability: events that are vivid and easy to recall may feel more common than they are.

After several episodes involving strangers, parking lots or late-night attacks, an ordinary environment may begin to feel unusually threatening—even if the cases are not representative of the listener’s actual risk.

True crime also tends to select cases for narrative power, not statistical representativeness. The most covered stories are not necessarily the most common forms of violence.

And the victims receiving the greatest media attention do not represent all victims equally. Research into popular true crime podcasts has found continuing patterns associated with “Missing White Woman Syndrome,” in which white female victims receive disproportionate visibility compared with victims from marginalized groups.

Therefore, the genre may teach real warning signs while simultaneously presenting a distorted map of who is harmed, where violence occurs and which victims society considers worthy of attention.

A map can contain useful roads and still leave entire communities blank.

The ethics problem cannot be separated from the comfort

A comforting listening ritual may still be built from someone else’s worst day.

I think responsible discussion of true crime has to hold both truths at once:

1. The listener’s emotional experience is real.
2. The victim’s humanity matters more than the listener’s entertainment.

The fact that a podcast helps someone sleep does not automatically make the podcast ethical.

Ethical true crime should distinguish public interest from public appetite. It should ask whether a detail helps the audience understand the crime, the investigation or the wider social issue—or whether it has been included only because it is shocking.

Table 3. A practical ethical-listening checklist

I use a simple question when evaluating any piece of true crime content:

If the victim’s family were sitting beside me, would this storytelling choice still feel defensible?

It is not a perfect test, because families may disagree with one another and public-interest reporting sometimes requires uncomfortable detail. But it restores a human presence that entertainment formats can easily erase.

A more mindful way to listen

You do not have to abandon true crime to consume it more thoughtfully. The goal is not moral purity. It is attention.

Before pressing play, ask:

What am I looking for right now?

• Suspense?
• Company?
• Information?
• Relief from boredom?
• A distraction from worry?
• Emotional intensity?
• A familiar ritual?

Then ask a second question after the episode:

What did it leave behind?

• Calm?
• Insight?
• Compassion?
• Fear?
• Anger?
• Intrusive images?
• A desire to keep listening even though you are tired?

I call this the before-and-after test.

The reason for listening tells you what you hope the content will do. The after-effect tells you what it actually did.

If you notice that true crime is becoming activating, consider changing one variable rather than making a dramatic rule:

• Listen earlier in the day.
• Avoid graphic video and choose audio.
• Turn off autoplay.
• Select solved cases rather than unresolved disappearances.
• Alternate true crime with lighter material.
• Choose reporting focused on systems, history or investigation.
• Stop following cases that closely resemble personal trauma.
• Avoid online speculation and amateur suspect-hunting.
• Set a one-episode boundary.
• Take a week away and notice whether sleep or vigilance changes.

The most useful question is not, “Is true crime good or bad?”

It is:

What kind of relationship am I building with it?

When comfort becomes hypervigilance

A habit may begin as soothing and gradually become less so. Because the format remains familiar, the change is easy to miss.

Consider stepping back if you notice:

• difficulty sleeping after listening,
• repeated checking of doors or windows,
• growing fear of ordinary public spaces,
• intrusive images,
• compulsive episode consumption,
• suspicion toward strangers or loved ones,
• avoidance of normal activities,
• emotional numbness,
• a need for increasingly graphic content,
• or distress connected to personal trauma.

Preference alone is not a diagnosis. Liking true crime does not prove that someone is anxious, traumatized or unhealthy.

But persistent distress deserves attention, regardless of which kind of media triggers it. A qualified mental health professional can help when fear, intrusive thoughts or avoidance begin interfering with daily life.

What recent research adds to the conversation

A large 2025 study examining psychological fascination with true crime found that interest in the genre cannot be reduced to one personality trait or motive. Curiosity, emotional engagement, threat-related interest and individual differences interact in complicated ways.

That complexity matters.

Popular explanations often flatten women into one of two stereotypes:

• frightened people trying to learn survival strategies, or
• insensitive consumers treating tragedy as entertainment.

Neither picture is adequate.

A listener can feel compassion for a victim, curiosity about an offender, anger at an institution and affection for a podcast host—all within the same episode.

Human motives are layered. I think our interpretation of true crime should be layered too.

The deeper paradox: rehearsing danger to return to safety

The strangest thing about true crime may not be that frightening stories can feel comforting.

It may be that human beings repeatedly use controlled versions of difficult emotions to manage the uncontrolled versions.

We listen to sad music when grieving.

We watch horror films while feeling safely afraid.

We read painful memoirs to feel less alone.

We revisit difficult stories because the story has an order that life did not.

True crime fits into this larger human pattern. It creates a symbolic room in which danger can be inspected without being physically entered.

But the door does not work the same way for everyone.

For one listener, the episode ends and the room closes.

For another, the danger follows her into bed.

That is why the most honest answer to “Why do women find true crime comforting?” is not a single psychological label.

It is a relationship between the story, the format, the listener and the moment in which she presses play.

The comfort is in the return

A woman finishes the episode. The narrator’s voice fades. The washing is folded. The dog has been walked. The room is exactly as it was before the story began.

That return may be the most important part.

The listener approached danger and came back.

She entered uncertainty and received a sequence.

She heard about silence, failure or injustice and found someone willing to name it.

She was frightened, perhaps, but not powerless. She could pause. She could question. She could choose what happened next.

I do not believe most women are comforted by violence. I believe many are comforted by the temporary transformation of violence into something bounded, discussable and, at least partially, understandable.

Still, that comfort creates responsibility.

A real person should never become merely a satisfying plot. Curiosity should not erase dignity. Feeling prepared should not become victim-blaming. Familiarity with a host should not replace skepticism. And a soothing ritual should not be allowed to quietly grow into hypervigilance.

Perhaps, then, the mindful way to listen is neither to condemn the attraction nor romanticize it.

It is to remain awake to both sides of the headphones:

the person seeking understanding—and the person whose life became the story.

Related posts You’ll love

• How cozy gaming became a powerful comfort ritual for Women who never called themselves gamers
• Why female power still makes people more uncomfortable than male power
• Why we can’t stop watching “Punch” the baby monkey — and how comfort objects soothe adult stress (shame-free)
• The shame of needing comfort: Why support feels risky
• Why receiving money, help, or gifts feels uncomfortable (psychology explained): Indebtedness, shame, and the “hidden contract” Your brain fears
• Why compliments feel uncomfortable — Self-worth reframes that actually work

FAQ

Sources and inspirations

• Boling, K. S., & Hull, K. (2018). Undisclosed information—Serial is My Favorite Murder: Examining motivations in the true crime podcast audience. Journal of Radio & Audio Media.
• Holmes, S., & Hines, C. (2025). Female audiences for true crime television: Popular discourse, feminism and the politics of “ethical viewing.” Critical Studies in Television: The International Journal of Television Studies.
• McDonald, M. M., James, R. M., & Roberto, D. P. (2021). True crime consumption as defensive vigilance: Psychological mechanisms of a rape avoidance system. Archives of Sexual Behavior.
• Miller, M., White, B., & Scrivner, C. (2024). Surfing uncertainty with screams: Predictive processing, error dynamics and horror films. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences.
• Naseer, S., & St. Aubin, C. (2023, June 20). True crime podcasts are popular in the U.S., particularly among women and those with less formal education. Pew Research Center.
• Niehoff, E., & Oosterwijk, S. (2020). To know, to feel, to share? Exploring the motives that drive curiosity for negative content. Current Opinion in Behavioral Sciences.
• Oosterwijk, S., Snoek, L., Tekoppele, J., Engelbert, L. H., & Scholte, H. S. (2020). Choosing to view morbid information involves reward circuitry. Scientific Reports.
• Perchtold-Stefan, C., Rominger, C., Ceh, S., Sattler, K., Veit, S.-V., & Fink, A. (2025). Out of the dark—Psychological perspectives on people’s fascination with true crime. British Journal of Psychology. Advance online publication.
• Rodgers, K. (2023). “Fcking politeness” and “staying sexy” while doing it: Intimacy, interactivity and the feminist politics of true crime podcasts. Feminist Media Studies.
• Scrivner, C. (2021). The psychology of morbid curiosity: Development and initial validation of the Morbid Curiosity Scale. Personality and Individual Differences.
• Slakoff, D. C., & Duran, D. (2025). A new media frontier, or more of the same? A descriptive analysis of the “Missing White Woman Syndrome” in top true crime podcasts. Race and Justice.